Cork GAA is set for a significant payday with confirmation that country star Zach Bryan will play two nights at SuperValu P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh next June – the first concert confirmed for the venue since May 2024.<\/p>\n
With Cork GAA servicing a debt of \u20ac31.1m, as per last year\u2019s county board accounts, the announcement of Bryan\u2019s two upcoming appearances on Leeside, on June 20 and 21 of next year, will deliver a significant boost to stadium revenues.<\/p>\n
The dates will not affect the home provincial championship fixtures of the Cork hurlers in 2026, but it remains to be seen if the Cork footballers will be discommoded by the two concerts that fall on a Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
In light of the American artist attracting 180,000 fans to Phoenix Park across three nights in June, securing Bryan for two nights at the \u201cmid-size\u201d 40,000-capacity P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh venue is a major coup for Cork GAA.<\/p>\n
Cork GAA CEO Kevin O\u2019Donovan stated earlier this year that attracting concerts to P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh has been challenging because the venue is \u201ctoo big for Live at the Marquee, too small for Coldplay\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also noted that \u201cconcerts are the only thing that will move the dial on debt here. Everything else really is to keep the lights on.\u201d Bruce Springsteen was the last headline performer to play at the home of Cork GAA, his 2024 sell-out concert providing an indicator of the lift that Zach Bryan\u2019s two gigs will deliver to stadium revenue.<\/p>\n
The 2024 P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh CTR accounts showed a revenue surge of 55% to \u20ac5.5m, owing to the Springsteen concert and two Munster SHC fixtures that brought almost 80,000 supporters through the turnstiles.<\/p>\n
Pre-tax losses, as a consequence, were reduced to \u20ac1.9m last year.<\/p>\n
The same accounts for 2022 – the year of five P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh concerts between Westlife, Elton John, and Ed Sheeran – recorded stadium revenue of \u20ac6.08m.<\/p>\n
With no concert taking place at P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh in the intervening 2023, the corresponding stadium revenue figure plummeted to \u20ac3.6m and saw a stadium loss for the year of \u20ac2.688m.<\/p>\n
Such was the bleak state of the 2023 stadium finances, at that year\u2019s county convention there was warning of a cashflow crisis facing the local organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all the years we have got stadium accounts, the stadium has lost money every single year except in 2022 when we had five concerts. I hope we have five concerts in the future, but that is unlikely,\u201d said Freemount delegate John O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we sell Kilbarry, we are not going to reduce stadium debt (\u20ac31m) and we understand that. But there is a bigger issue coming down the track, it\u2019s the cashflow for the next four or five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be really concerned that unless there is a massive improvement in the operation of the stadium or huge income from GAA activity, then we are going to struggle to meet that cash requirement over the next five years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In contrast to his remarks from earlier this year, Kevin O\u2019Donovan told delegates at the 2023 Cork convention that it was dangerous practice to be reliant on concerts for much-needed revenue injections.<\/p>\n
He described concerts as \u201cwindfall\u201d events and that the stadium needs to reach a \u201csteady-state position\u201d where it is not reliant on concerts to turn a profit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very dangerous model for us to base a business plan on three concerts a year, which was done previously. They are windfalls. They come, they go,\u201d said O’Donovan.<\/p>\n
Cork GAA plans to turn their Kilbarry landbank into a strategic housing development of 319 units and, in the process, eat significantly into the mountain of debt it is struggling to move, has been stalled by a judicial review.<\/p>\n
The redevelopment of P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh was completed at a cost of \u20ac96m in 2017. The debt arising from that rebuild fell by just \u20ac141k across the 2024 financial year.<\/p>\n
Bank debt, as of September 2024, stood at \u20ac19.181m. Monies owed to Croke Park, meanwhile, totalled \u20ac11.9m. The two figures combined left total debt reaching \u20ac31,157,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork GAA is set for a significant payday with confirmation that country star Zach Bryan will play two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[24,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-198418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cork-gaa","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115607340671550654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}